In the Republicans' latest ad blitz, it's all Obama all the time

GOP is focusing so tightly on the president that Mitt Romney – their actual candidate – is almost an afterthought

The Republican party's tight focus on Obama, almost to the exclusion of their own ticket, makes it almost inevitable that the election will get even uglier than it has so far Photograph: Mario Tama/Getty Images

Friday 25 May 2012 16.28 EDT
First published on Friday 25 May 2012 16.28 EDT

When the Republican primary dragged on into March, even the GOP's most dedicated spinners stopped DJing the Great Conservative Base Shuffle. For months, they had contended that contest – as ugly and expensive as it was – would wind up being an advantage for the eventual nominee.

On into February, partisan such as Karl Rove and RNC chairman Rince Priebus pushed back on pessimistic assessments with a single talking point: "Hey, look what the 2008 nomination fight did for Obama!" Well, the marathon of mudslinging has been over for weeks now and the message out of Republican party still boils down to "Hey, look at Obama!"

The benefit of finally settling on a nominee was supposed to allow the GOP to rally around a specific candidate with a specific message, but you'd never know that to look at the ads being produced on Romney's behalf. Rove's own organization, the inscrutably monickered Crossroads GPS has yet to put Romney on the map.

There is no mention of Romney, or even the existence of a rival party – in any of the three ads (here, here, and the most recent here) it's produced since the de facto start of the general election at the beginning of April.

Rather, the ads end with the exhortation to "tell Obama" he's wrong on whatever issue is at hand, as if the election were about persuading the president, not ousting him. And as for the ads' suggestion that this message (all them rather vague themselves; lots of progressives think Obama is "wrong" on stuff, too) needs to be sent via "a new majority", you'd never know that the party behind the ads controls one chamber of the legislative branch of government and holds long-term sway over the most durable one. (Indeed, it's hard to figure out what the "new majority" stands for at all; its Facebook page states it is a "policy and grassroots advocacy organization committed to educating, equipping and mobilizing citizens to take action on the critical issues that will shape our nation's future." Sounds like community organizing to me.)

Romney's policies are as covert as his candidacy. One ad wraps with the assertion that "We need solutions, not just promises", but when it comes to foreign policy, economic policy, and, lately, educational policy, the Romney campaign has presented a canvas that is artfully blank.

Rather than build up an argument for Mitt Romney to lead the country, the GOP is putting forward a vision, a framework that encourages voters to see themselves as part of a populist army that will rise up against a leader so powerful he personally sets gas prices on a daily basis. This choice of narratives is understandable, when you pitch a battle against a bully (Obama, by their telling, though I don't think he's ever performed an involuntary hair-ectomy), it doesn't matter who the underdog is. Keeping their challenger (and his policies) elusive makes sense especially given what a poor mascot for the underdog the terminally ruling class Romney would make – though tying him to the roof of the GOP clown car would certainly fulfill a karmic debt.

The Republican party's tight focus on Obama, almost to the exclusion of their own ticket, makes it almost inevitable that the election will get even uglier than it has so far – because you can only talk about gas prices for so long. "Character", that catch-all for attacks that dip into private lives, will surface as a point of debate and it will be interesting to see if Republicans and their surrogates can resist crossing the line into racial bigotry. (For their part, Obama's team would be most honorable if can refrain from taking advantage of Romney's religion.)

But there's an irony in all this. So much has changed for African Americans since the civil rights era, the activists and advocates who fought just to bring the plight of their people into general consciousness would hardly recognize the kinds of battles we fight now. Sixty years ago, Ralph Ellison just wanted white America see African Americans as human. Today, it's the first black president that's locked in combat with an invisible man.